Rachel lying down with 2 of the boys being boys

Real Rachel, our Nova Scotia fiddle playing friend,
featured in a newsletter I worked on in the fall.

We'll start with the pic of Little Rachel, because the little goaties always get you to read my posts. We named her Rachel for our friend Rachel who left today to move to NYC to continue med school.

We had a Rachel Going Away Party last night, hosted by Tom and Roberta in Cooperstown. Little Rachel would have loved to attend, but it was past her bedtime.

Yours truly might have sung a song or 2 at said get-together with much help and encouragement by said musician friends. Mostly I sang a few John Prine songs, one of my favorite all-time singer songwriters.

Tom and Roberta, our musician hosts

Will and Sue

Just pics

Little Tara in front, unidentified friend behind her. Still plenty of snow.

Woody demanding some blog attention, outshining his cutest competitors.

Barnwells in the goat barn

Tara with Little Tara

Tara and Barn feeding raisins to Blossom and Rosie

Rachel (lying down) with 2 young men

Rosie and Rita (red girl in back) with Rosie's pregnant daughter Sharon
in the front. (Sharon of Rose—did I get that backwards?)

You know you are special when we name a goat after you—although some aren't especially flattered to be sharing a name with a goat. (Hey, at least we didn't give your name to a pregnant pig!) Since we hadn't yet named our second girl, and since Tara seemed to have a special affection for her...well it was just meant to be.

Our first little girl this year is Rachel, who we named after our fiddle-playing musical friend from Nova Scotia. She is leaving the area to finish med school in NYC.

And we still have 2 pregnant yearlings who should deliver very soon. We are hoping for at least 1 more girl so we can name her Red Betty, for Barn's sister in Alabama who is in love with all of our goats and goaties.

I saw on facebook the other day that The Beekman Boys are having "Baby Goat Tours" at their farm in nearby Sharon Springs. And they're charging $25 for an hour! They do have bigger cleaner barns, and far more kids than we do, but if anyone is interested, we'll give you 2 hours for $20. A real bargain! 😃

Make your plans. Now is the time to come see them if you want goat kisses. The older kids are already to the bouncy fun stage, meaning they are nearly impossible to catch and hold. But the youngest ones still like to be held and cuddled. So come on down!

Bella in prison (with Little Tara) until she's done with her antibiotics...
which was shortly after I took this photo.

More goat drama, Stormy moves in, weather still crazy

Bella with new baby

More Goat Drama
We can never predict how the goat birthing season will go. Our first few years went smoothly, but now that we (think) we have it all figured out, we don't.

The little cutie above is 1 of the 2 who had mixed up moms, thanks to me and the hub. Happy to say that he and his sister and their real mom are all just fine now.

Stormy

No sooner do we straighten that out, when on Tuesday, Bella delivers a healthy boy. We assume she is done because this is her first year kidding and they usually have only 1. Wrong.

When I checked a few hours later, mom was lying down nowhere near her kid, and it was obvious things weren't right. After many phone calls to the vet and our Goat Lady friend Karen, I had to play midwife and poke around inside and out to find that there is another kid in there that is not coming out.

Stormy delivery on Tuesday morning

We had this problem last year with Lucille, and ended up losing her and her 2 kids. This year, Karen came to the rescue. In the goat hospital (again in the back of my poor Kia!) she carefully pulled out the little girl kid shown in the photo. I was happy to be wrong this time—I really thought we were going to lose this kid and maybe mom too.

The little girl is doing great, but we lost her little brother yesterday. I think he did not get fed by mom soon enough because she was so busy with this second one. We also lost one of the triplets for reasons unknown.

Stormy Daniels and Stormy Weather
Husband has this idea that getting a pregnant sow will be a fun new project for us. I am not thoroughly convinced, but Stormy came to her new home on Tuesday morning, during the goat drama.

And, if you saw my post on Monday you saw the snow squall that came after a day of grass sightings. Tuesday had some leftover snow which melted almost completely by Thursday when I took the little goatie pic above. So what do we get today? More snow. Possibly 12", although it's looking more like 8" or 9".

Whatever...

Still winter

A touch of snow on March 18

Not a bad weather day until I was coming home from work. Snow squall. The Husband was giving more water to the goats.

Susan is still captured in the milking room, learning that these are indeed her children.

We're getting there.

3 young ones from last year still might deliver another kid or 2.

Sorting out the goats

My latest boyfriend, the first kid born. I think he loves me.

Blossom with her real kids

Susan's little outcasts

6 kids in the Kia

On Friday, Blossom gave birth to 2 fine healthy large boys.

Late yesterday, after 2 days of confinement in the milking room with her 2 kids, Susan finally started feeding them. We were bottle-feeding the white one because only the boy was milking from Susan (and because The Husband likes bottle-feeding a kid now and then).

Yesterday Susan must have figured out what was going on and started feeding her little girl as well. This is important.

Also yesterday, we took the other 6 kids in the Kia to June for disbudding (don't ask). Now that we had them up close, we found that all 6 were boys. So Susan's little struggling girl is the only girl so far.

The remaining 3 does, if they are truly pregnant, are all kidding for the first time. They will probably only have one kid each, so we have 3 more chances to get another girl.

The latest weather report: We had a gorgeous sunny day on Friday. It reached 63° and melted almost all the snow. Then yesterday it went back to cold and windy and snowy all over again. That seems to be the ongoing trend...all winter long...

Snowing again this morning.

Welcome back from the British Virgin Islands, Tara. The least you could have done was bring us some more sun!

On Saturday, snow covering up the grass all over again

Our first triplets and twins with a story to tell

Blossom with twins

Susan with twins

Our first set of triplets was born yesterday. The 2 black ones look very much like their grandfather, Johnny Cash. Mom Rosie, is a white Saanen doe. Dad Ray Davies, also white, is a mix of white Saanen and David Bowie (the black Nubian with white floppy ears) and Johnny Cash who apparently provided the strongest genes, at least for these 2.

The Twins
Today The Husband told me as he left for work that Blossom had given birth to 2 kids, but was not caring for them very well.

I went out there around lunch time to find both kids outside in the sun crying for mom. Ms. Blossom was also outside, paying them no attention. My goat lady friend Karen suggested I separate them into a smaller room and try to convince mom to feed them. With no collar, Blossom was not easy to catch. After a half hour of chasing her, I finally caught her, put the collar on, and physically dragged her inside. No easy task for human vs. 120+ lb. goat.

So I corralled her in the milking room, and bribed her with some raisins and sweet feed to stand still long enough for them to milk from her.

She was not happy about it.

A few hours later, The Husband comes home from work early and asks about the little ones. He goes out to see for himself, and comes back in to say "I think I found the problem".

He got the names confused. They weren't Blossom's kids at all, they were Susan's. This is her second year with kids. Last year she gave us Ray Davies, our current sire, and she was a very good mom. But now that most of the day has passed, when I lock up Ms. Susan with her kids, everyone is confused.

Not half as confused as poor Blossom, the innocent and very pregnant goat who was beat up by me for no good reason. She will never trust me again. My only saving grace was that she got her fill of raisins and feed. I think she is going to kid very soon, probably tomorrow.

No spring yet and dog spots

No Spring Yet
It's the middle of March and we still have snow and an icy driveway. Not as much snow as we had last year, and definitely not as bad as 2 years ago when we had almost 4 feet in a late March blizzard.

Cyrus is at the door watching the propane delivery guy, while Woody is sacked out in front of the blazing woodstove. I am trying to use up the remaining wood so that we burn less propane. Just today we surpassed our "pre-buy" amount of 750 gallons. One benefit of buying early is that you can lock-in the price. We paid $1.92 per gallon for the season thus far—the 42 gallons we just went over are $3.19 each. Yikes!

Dog Spots
When we were thinking about adopting Woody, his foster Mom Dawn told me he had what looked like a white paint spot on his big black head. I only noticed recently that Cyrus has a similar white spot in a similar place on his big black head.

I wonder what this means?

Given the fact that they both spend a lot of time sleeping in our warm house on our furniture, I think it means they are spoiled rotten.

Let the fun begin!

We have 7 goats who are most probably pregnant. The 3 young ones will probably only deliver 1 kid, the older ones usually have 2. Red-headed Rita was the first to kid this year with 2 beautiful children. In the top pic, they are just born, the second pic just a few hours later, all cleaned up with Rita being the good mom that she is.

As you well know I don't normally post pics of myself on here, but this little goatie looks so darn cute that (I hope) you won't even notice me in the photo.

I am just a tad concerned that all these pregnant ladies could increase our herd size to unmanageable proportions, but my farmer husband does not share my concern.

So be it.

A dog's duty at The Deer Diner

Woody and Cyrus think that it is their sworn duty to clean up any messes on the property, even though it isn't our property.

The Husband recently started walking Cyrus off the leash for the driveway part of his morning walks. He can do this now that the chickens are safe behind the fence, or still in the coop. Husband reports they are doing very well.

When we first got Woody, I would let him wander freely while I walked Sophie, who was deaf at the time, on the leash. He had days where he would stray for hours, but he always managed to come back. Twice he came back a bit bloody from minor injuries, but he always came back.

I would have liked to keep training Woody to be off the leash, but when we got Cyrus, there just wasn't an easy way for me to walk them both. Since then, I have walked them separately, both on the leash.

But now that the chickens are safe from Cyrus the chicken killer; and now that the ground is snow-covered and usually slippery and icy under the snow; and now that it is more and more difficult to convince myself to walk the boys in the icy, snowy, freezing, often windy conditions—I have started letting them out together for a romp in the back 40.

It went well for a day or 2, until Woody discovered a dead doe under the snow on the neighboring property. Since then, the 2 of them hustle back there happy as can be, and set about dismantling the poor deer. This photo is of the deer deposit spot, about 50 feet from where she was found. Other bits were carried by my favorite hound dog and carefully stashed back by the house.

Luckily, there is not much left of her, although I suspect when the snow melts, there will be more to find.

Oh my.